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SuperBased Observer — Claude Desktop (.mcpb bundle) — UNVERIFIED

Local-first token, cost and cache observability for Claude Desktop, packaged in Anthropic's MCP Bundle format.

⚠️ Read this before using it

This artifact has never been installed into a live Claude Desktop or Cowork session. Two separate things are unverified:

  1. Cowork. Anthropic documents that Claude Desktop's Extensions panel installs .mcpb bundles, and describes Cowork as a tab of that same app. No first-party sentence says a bundle's tools are available inside a Cowork session. That link is an inference, so this page does not claim Cowork coverage — it claims a bundle exists and needs checking.
  2. The bundle itself. No .mcpb archive has been packed or installed anywhere; only the manifest is generated (see "Packing" below), and it deviates from the spec in one stated way.

The claude_desktop_config.json route further down is the grounded one — Anthropic's Help Center documents it directly. Prefer it until someone verifies the bundle.

Requires the observer binary already on your PATH. This is wiring only — the manifest declares an MCP server that runs observer; it does not download or bundle it.

npm i -g @superbased/observer     # or: pipx install superbased-observer
observer start                    # run the local daemon

Install

The documented, grounded route — merge this into claude_desktop_config.json and restart Claude Desktop:

OS Path
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json 
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "observer": {
      "command": "observer",
      "args": [
        "serve"
      ]
    }
  }
}

The bundle route (unverified, see the box above): pack this directory into a .mcpb and drag the result into Settings → Extensions.

Packing

The generator emits superbased/manifest.json and stops there: building the archive needs Anthropic's own packer, which is not available in this repository's build environment, and shipping a hand-zipped file that claims to be a validated bundle would be a claim we cannot make.

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/mcpb
cd cowork/superbased
mcpb pack                         # produces superbased.mcpb

mcpb validate manifest.json checks the manifest on its own if you only want the schema verdict.

What it wires

Field Value
manifest_version 0.3 — the current spec version in anthropics/mcpb.
server.type binary
server.mcp_config observer serve — the same launch observer init writes for every other client.

The one deviation, stated plainly

Every documented bundle type packages its own server artefact, and binary is described as self-contained. This bundle contains no binary. Observer's binary arrives through npm or PyPI and lives on your PATH, so entry_point and mcp_config.command name the command observer rather than a file inside the archive. That is a departure from what the format intends, and it is the main reason this artifact is marked unverified rather than shipped as-is.

One consequence worth knowing on Windows: the spec notes that hosts append .exe to a binary command automatically. A PyPI install (pipx install superbased-observer) puts observer.exe on PATH, which matches; an npm global install puts a shim without that extension. Untested either way.

The observer server exposes observer's project, session, cost and cache queries as tools, reading the local ~/.observer/observer.db. It makes no network calls of its own.

Not submitted anywhere

Anthropic curates a reviewed extensions gallery. Nothing here has been submitted to it, and submitting is an operator decision — one that should wait until the two unverified points above are settled.

Double-wiring

observer init writes no Claude Desktop config today — internal/mcp has no Claude Desktop client row (the claude-code row is the Claude Code CLI, a different product) — so nothing here duplicates what observer wrote. Installing the bundle AND pasting the config block declares the same server twice; pick one.

Cowork capture is unaffected either way: observer's watcher reads Claude Desktop's own local agent-mode session files whether or not any of this is configured.

Links